Slowly Feeling Normal Again

I've started to climb out of this haze of being sick and I'm starting to bounce back to normal. I haven't done very much training in the last couple weeks, a couple runs and easy indoor rides but I've had to devote a lot of my time to work. Yesterday I worked 14hrs and it felt like the longest day of my life. I hate it when my job infringes on my personal time, I need to have a few hours every night that I can train and spend some time with Amber. Otherwise I just feel like all I do is work and that's not much of a life. I do enjoy my job but not to the point where I want to be there 14-16hrs everyday. I need my personal time to recharge and feel ready for the next day.

I'll spend the next couple weeks doing some easy training and helping Amber any way I can to get ready for her 50km Ultra on Feb 15th. It'll be nice to see some friends and family in Calgary and just hang out with AD doing some of the things we enjoyed there. I'm also looking forward to seeing Amber race again, I haven't seen her devote this much time to training since Boston 2008. She's running very strong and remaining injury free day after day so I think she's definitely found the secret to what works well for her.

Blah.......

I'm down and out. I took it easy last week with only a couple swims but a hard 2hr bike on Saturday and a long run on Sunday with Amber and H-dog was enough to make me sick. I hate feeling like this but this weekend was tough and I'm not too surprised. I did 'Have Mercy' with the group on Saturday and it is one of the toughest bike workouts Coach Troy has- 2hrs of leg busting sets, non-stop. Ross and Sonya were really feeling it, they also competed a 2hr swim workout right before.

I thought I was going to be okay just supporting Amber on her 40k long run, Harley and I did 25k and it was a lot of in-the-car, out-of-the-car and I think the cold was just too much. Monday night was one of the worst sleeps I've ever had and I needed to get up that morning and drive 2-1/2 hours to Whitecourt for work, that was rough. I did my two appointments and headed straight to the hotel to sleep. I'm not feeling that great today but I'll finish up the day at work and go right back bed at the hotel in Edson. I'm hopeful that I'll bounce back quickly and be okay for our weekend in Jasper, I would be incredibly depressed if I couldn't do some trail runs out there. That's really the highlight of all the travelling I have to do. We'll see tomorrow night how I'm feeling I'm not leaving Jasper without getting in at least a couple short runs, even if it means dragging my aching body over one of those mountains it's just too beautiful not to get outside.

Some Things Insipre Me and Some Things Make Me Laugh...

I've been trying to support Amber any way I can with her goal of becoming an ultramarathoner this year but this week she really inspired me. She completed a tough, tough 35km run in -17'c temps today and only took in 100 calories! I went out to run today and after 21kms I was completely spent. I was dehydrated, tired, and exhausted but I knew she was still out there, pushing through the pain and giving it everything she had to get in the distance she had planned for today. I knew Harley was done for the day so hopped on the treadmill and searched for a little inspiration in a DVD Amber bought and did another 9kms...


and somethings make me laugh...

Saturday Suffering

We had a full house with 10 of us in our basement pounding the pedals doing a tough, tough Coach Troy sprint session for an hour. I sent out my usual Wednesday e-mail inviting everyone for a spin and politely reminded them that their results in July are determined by their efforts in January. I got reply after reply stating they were coming, fear is an excellent motivator and I was a little worried that we wouldn't have enough space. I counted eight confirmations so I was pretty sure only about 5-6 would show up and we would be fine. However everyone was there ready to rock at 9am, it was a tight squeeze but we had just enough room and there was a fantastic energy before the ride. Amber just wanted to spin easy so I invited Robert to try out the computrainer and he was all over it (hit 596 watts max!).


I wanted to make sure if this many people were going to get up early, pack up their bikes, trainers and lug them down to our basement in the middle January they were going to get what they came for, and they definitely did. The sprint workout may seem a little dumb this time of year but this is exactly the time to push the VO2 to new heights and give your body the necessary time to recover and absorb the training. I'm not going to get tired or burnt-out in January so I push myself and see what is possible. If I start to feel a little more fatigued then I take an extra rest day, who cares it's January. When it's beautiful and sunny outside in June and July the last thing I want to do is sit on the couch and rest even though I know I should. Hey if Lance says he won his tours with the work he did in January then I know I'm going to have a great season with the work I've been putting in.

We started off fairly easy with some 30 second warm ups but once the workout started everyone was hurting from beginning to end. 10 second, all-out efforts on 50 seconds rest for 5 reps, 5 second lead-outs into 10 second sprints with 45 seconds rest. We were all COMPLETELY bagged by the time we hit 30 minutes to go. I looked over at Robert and he was very, very pale and I thought he was going to hurl at any moment. Then we went into the plyometric jumps for 30 seconds and we were all struggling just to get off our bikes, let alone jump off the ground. Fantastic work done by everyone and I'm very proud that so many people showed up even though I warned them that this workout would be a killer. Grande Prairie athletes are awesome! I can't wait until next Saturday.

New Year, New Goals

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, Amber and I definitely did. We spent some time in Saskatchewan with Amber's family and it was a lot of fun. Christmas is always a time to be with the ones you love and eat and drink to excess, I sure did my fair share of that. On the long drive home it looked like Amber had a lot on her mind and I was doing my best to try and get her to open up but I think she needed to sort some things out on that trip. After about 10hrs locked in the car together she had a breakthrough, she was going to do the Death Race. I new she wanted to do it I just wasn't sure if she wanted to do it in 2010. Neither of us are big on New Year's Resolutions; that implies something is wrong in your life and you want to change it, but we are both living the life of our dreams. New Year's Goals now that is something we like to set every year and work to achieve them everyday. I was very, very happy she had found a "big goal" for the new year and I could see a huge weight was lifed off her shoulders. The Death Race seems crazy to me it's a 125km run over two major mountain passes and some incredibly tough, tough terrain. I know if anyone can do it, she can.

It was great for me too because I had a tentative schedule of races I wanted to do next year but I couldn't really commit to anything until I was sure what she wanted to do. Now that she felt like she was going to commit herself to ultramarathoning this year I could feel like I was going to commit myself to doing Ironman again. I did have the thought of going to Kona this year but I think I would rather save that for 2011 and qualify at an earlier season Ironman like Coeur d'Alene. Also 2011 has the added benefit of racing against Lance again, I got him in the Boston marathon but I think he definitely has the advantage in an Ironman. It'll be nice to just be there when he is there and see him smoke the bike course.

Here's what I've come up with for 2010, I want to stick with the theme of staying local and supporting races in and around our community. There is a great group of tough triathletes here in GP and it makes such a difference to go out for a long hard swim or ride when there are other people willing to go out there and suffer with you.

May 9th- Brian Harms 8K, Grande Prairie
May 23rd- GP Press Run 21K, Grande Prairie
June 6th- Mountainview Tri (Olympic), Hinton
June 20th- Grande Prairie Tri (Sprint)
July 4th- Great White North 1/2 IM, Stony Plain
July 18th- Peach Classic Tri (Olympic), PentictonJuly 18th- 24th- Penticton Training Camp
August 29th- Ironman Canada
November 7th- New York Marathon


It's a pretty full schedule but I'm really excited to be doing Ironman again and having a week in Penticton with Amber and friends just swimming, riding and running. The Peach Classic will be a great kick off to the week and there is some very, very good competion that shows up so it'll keep me sharp and pushing the whole time. I think riding the Ironman course a couple times will be great too, I know I've done it a few times already but I'm hoping to take my cycling to another level this year and be in the 5hr- 5:10 range.

That's it for the year, I have a challenging work schedule as well but it looks like Amber and I are going to be spending a lot of time in Jasper and Grande Cache so it's a year I'm really looking forward to!

Happy Holidays Everyone

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Humble Beginnings

I've been running most of my life even in elementary school I could remember running in x-country races against my friends. I never really thought of myself as a good runner I was always the kid that crossed the line looking like he was really suffering the entire time. However there was something about that suffering that I liked. I think it was the fact that it was like stepping into the ring and facing an opponent knowing that you are going to hurt your body and willing accepting the pain that's coming. Taking yourself to a place not too many people can go. I'm still running and taking myself to that place but it's been a long, tough road to get to where I am now.

A big shift in my attitude came when I met Amber, all of my success in the last three years I owe to her. She is my inspiration and source of strength when I am feeling down. I like to think we support each other in all that we do and I'm very happy to have Amber and Harley in my life. I tell Amber that if I had never met her I would be drunk in a ditch some where. Probably not true, but we met each other at the right time in our lives and I know she has helped me reach beyond what I believed was my potential.

Training for the Vegas Marathon I was a little unsure of how I was going to do. I had not run a marathon since Boston in 2008 (a year and a half ago). My training runs were going well, I felt strong for most of them and never had a sense that I was completely shattered afterwards. The toughest run was a 32km long run the day after a 3km (all out) x-country race on the Nordic Centre trails. I was hurting from the very start until the final 130th minute. I told Amber it was the best "mental training day" I could have hoped for, during a race there is always a point where you just want to stop or at least slow down. During that run I was preparing myself mentally as much as physically to run in that zone where you are comfortable being uncomfortable.


The day finally arrived after 13 weeks of hard training and I was optimistic about having the race of my life but I was still a little uncharacteristically nervous. Thanks to Amber for keeping me calm and giving me the space I needed to be in my own head race morning. When we're both racing I'm usually the calm one but that day I needed her to be there for me and she definitely was.

I started in the first corral with the elites, a bunch of Kenyans and Ethiopians who were about 40-50lbs lighter than I was. I looked around and felt completely out of place, I was a hulk in the midst of a bunch of feather-weights. The race started out very, very fast. A group of about 50 men and women were running a blistering pace. I tried not to get caught up in race strategy too early and stayed with a pace that I felt I could handle but still was pushing my ability. Eventually I found a group of about 10-12 guys that were running a tough but good pace. It was a little windy on the way out so I stayed in the group for as long as I could but it seemed like the pace was getting stronger or I was getting weaker so before the 7 mile mark I let them go. By the time I hit the 10 mile mark I was hurting but still in that zone of being comfortably uncomfortable. I met my goal of getting there under an hour.


When I broke off on the marathon route and left the 1/2 marathoners to battle it out I was confident I could get to the 20 mile mark in under 2 hours. The point from mile 7 to mile 19 is a long, slow, very gradual climb and I was happy not to have the downhill pounding on my legs but at mile 19 I had an incredible side stitch that felt like a knife being plunged into my diaphragm. This is where the mental training has to kick in or your race is over, I took a moment to collect myself and just kept moving. At the turn around at 19 miles I understood why I was hurting so badly, it was a long-slow downhill all the way back to the strip. I let my legs go and the stitch went away.


I hit the 20th mile in 1:58.58 and was confident I could shuffle the final 6 miles in under 40 minutes. Mile 23 is when my legs started cramping up, my quads were seizing and I had some strange alternating weakness in each leg. I could tell things were getting tough because I was really hurting but I ended up catching two guys in the final two miles, one of whom was walking. That's one of the tough things about the marathon, it doesn't matter how in shape you are it will kill you before the end, usually in the final 3 miles for me. This time though I was mentally ready and just kept my legs shuffling until the end. I finished with a new PR of 2:36.45 and was the top Canadian and 1st in my age group!


From my humble beginnings on the elementary school field suffering like a fighter in a 15 rounder to my race on Sunday I earned that finish. Thanks to Amber and H-dog for the training and inspiration, I'll always feel on top of the world with you in my life.